GB News’s Miriam Cates forgets her commandments

“I still can’t believe Parliament has legalised abortion up to the moment of birth,” Cates wrote to her 34,000 followers on the platform. “We live in a country where it is illegal to hunt a fox – or indeed to sell a drinking straw made of plastic – but lawful to kill a human baby. We have lost our way.”

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Except, of course, absolutely nothing of the sort has happened. As the journalist and author Oliver Kamm wrote in response: “There’s a good reason why you can’t believe Parliament has legalised abortion up to the moment of birth. It hasn’t.”

Leaving aside the fact that, as the Bill is still progressing through Parliament, nothing has actually happened yet (something that one might think that Cates as a former MP, albeit a short-lived one, might know), even if passed in its current form it would not “legalise abortion up to the moment of birth”.

The 24-week limit in England, Scotland and Wales will still apply, with abortions after 24 weeks only lawful in very narrow and exceptional circumstances, such as a severe risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman, or a diagnosis of a fatal foetal anomaly. These cases are extremely rare and medically complex, not elective decisions made “up to birth”.

In addition, equating it with banning plastic straws – a law regulating public behaviour, and nothing to do with medical risk, patient safety or clinical ethics – is not only fatuous, but really quite silly. Still, as long as it feeds the rage machine and keeps the clicks coming – and Cates’s post has, at the time of writing, already received 276 replies, more than 1,000 reposts and 4,300 likes, that particular commandment can probably be quietly overlooked!